In reality, there's remarkable consensus among mainstream economists, including those from the left and right, on most major macroeconomic issues. The debate in Washington about economic policy is phony. It's manufactured. And it's entirely political.

Let's start with Obama's stimulus. The standard Republican talking point is that it failed, meaning it didn't reduce unemployment. Yet in a survey of leading economists conducted by the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, 92 percent agreed that the stimulus succeeded in reducing the jobless rate.